OBAMA LAUNCHES DRIVE ON CLIMATE CHANGE

President targets fossil-fuel industry

“The president realizes that you can’t combat climate change without a direct confrontation with the fossil fuel industry,” Brune said in an interview. “What has us most encouraged by the president’s speech is he is lacing up his gloves and getting ready for that fight.”

But even as Obama made clear that his administration would target coal-fired power plants, he did not spell out how the EPA would do so or what it would cost.

Earlier this year, the EPA delayed a rule limiting greenhouse gas emissions from new power plants. The agency will revive the rule in September and will establish separate standards for gas- and coal-fired power plants, as the utility industry had sought, according to people familiar with the agency’s plans who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, which is funded by utilities, railroad companies and others, announced Tuesday that it would launch a multimillion-dollar advertising and social media campaign to counter the administration’s climate initiatives. Group spokeswoman Lisa Miller said the effort would begin next month inside the Beltway before expanding to other states in August.

Organizing for Action, a nonprofit advocacy group affiliated with Obama, launched a voter-mobilization effort Tuesday in support of the climate-change agenda. “I need to know you’ll fight alongside me,” the president is quoted as saying in a message distributed by the group. “Say you will.”

But in his speech, Obama also cautioned that there may be few immediate political rewards for attempts to curb the nation’s carbon output. He said progress would be measured “in crises averted, in a planet preserved.”

As part of his pitch for intensifying the government’s action on climate, the president emphasized that the United States and other countries are already facing climate-change effects such as rising sea levels and increasingly frequent severe weather.

He said the federal government will “partner with communities seeking help to prepare for droughts and floods, reduce the risk of wildfires, protect the dunes and wetlands that pull double duty as green space and as natural storm barriers.”

Federal agencies, he said, will be required to ensure that projects funded with taxpayer dollars are “built to withstand increased flood risks.” Administration officials said other efforts would include strengthening dune systems and building oyster reefs to limit the wave effect of storms and working to restore the lower Mississippi River delta system.